Human Relationships in Yoga (07-10-12) Human Relationships in Yoga YOU seem not to have understood the principle of this yoga. The old yoga demanded a complete renunciation extending to the giving up of the worldly life itself. This yoga aims instead at a new and transformed life. But it insists as inexorably on a complete throwing away of desire and attachment in the mind, life and body. Its aim is to refound life in the truth of the spirit and for that purpose to transfer the roots of all we are and do from the mind, life and body to a greater consciousness above the mind. That means that in the new life all the connections must be founded on a spiritual intimacy and a truth quite other t

Organise With The Help Of Reason (19-07-12) To hate the sinner is the worst sin, for it is hating God; yet he who commits it, glories in his superior virtue. Sri Aurobindo Thoughts and Aphorisms-51)   Organise With The Help Of Reason In order to set on these paths(towards the higher realities) without fear and without any danger, one must have organised his being with the help of reason around the highest centre he consciously possesses, and organised it in such a way that it is inwardly in his control and he has not to say at every moment, “Ah! I have done this, I don’t know why. Ah! That’s happened to me, I don’t know why” – and always it is “ I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t

Win Your Little Victories (31-10-12) If Life alone were and not death, there could be no immortality; if love were alone and not cruelty, joy would be only a tepid and ephemeral rapture; if reason were alone and not ignorance, our highest attainment would not exceed a limited rationality and worldly wisdom. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-91) Win Your Little Victories If through an effort of inner consciousness and knowledge, you can truly overcome in yourself a desire, that is to say, dissolve and abolish it, and if through inner goodwill, through consciousness, light, knowledge, you are able to dissolve the desire, you will be, first of all in yourself personally, a hundred

The Divine Grace (21-10-12) The Divine Grace I should like to say something about the Divine Grace – for you seem to think it should be something like a Divine Reason acting upon lines not very different from those of human intelligence. But it is not that. Also it is not a universal Divine Compassion either, acting impartially on all who approach it and acceding to all prayers. It does not select the righteous and reject the sinner. The Divine Grace came to aid the persecutor (Saul of Tarsus), it came to St. Augustine the profligate, to Jagai and Madhai of infamous fame, to Bilwamangal and many others whose conversion might well scandalise the puritanism of the human moral intelligence;

Offer Up Wrong Movements (11-01-12) Call not everything evil which men call evil, but only that reject which God has rejected; call not everything good which men call good, but accept only what God has accepted. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-246)     Offer Up Wrong Movements Instead of driving the wrong movement underground, it is to be offered. It is to place the thing, the movement itself, to project it into the Light. …If we can project out sensation- or our activity or our perception- into that Light, that will bring the cure. Instead of suppressing or rejecting it as something to be destroyed (it cannot be destroyed!), it has to be projected into the Light… Ins

Seeking the Divine (05-02-12) Seeking the Divine ….. Let us first put aside the quite foreign consideration of what we would do if the union with the Divine brought eternal joylessness, Nirananda or torture. Such a thing does not exist and to drag it in only clouds the issue. The Divine is Anandamaya and one can seek him for the Ananda he gives; but he has also in him many other things and one may seek him for any of them, for peace, for liberation, for knowledge, for power, for anything else of which one may feel the pull or the impulse. It is quite possible for someone to say: "Let me have Power from the Divine and do His work or His Will and I am satisfied, even if the use of Power entails

Religion and True Spiritual Life (08-05-12) The Atheist is God playing at hide and seek with Himself; but is the Theist any other ? Well, perhaps; for he has seen the shadow of God and clutched at it Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-33) Religion and True Spiritual Life   Religion exists almost exclusively in its forms, its cults, in a certain set of ideas, and it becomes great only through the spirituality of a few exceptional individuals, whereas true spiritual life, andof every precise, intellectual form, every limited form of life. It embraces all possibilities and manifestations and makes them the expression, the vehicle of a higher and more universal truth. A new religi

A Very Difficult Art (11-04-12) Sir Philip Sidney said of the criminal led out to be hanged, "There, but for the grace of God, goes Sir Philip Sidney." Wiser, had he said, "There, by the grace of God, goes Sir Philip Sidney." Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-27) A Very Difficult Art If, when you were quite small, your parents or those who look after you, took the trouble to teach you how to do what you do, do it properly as it should be done, in the right way, then that would help you to avoid all- all these mistakes you make through the years. And not only do you make mistakes, but nobody tells you they are mistakes! And so you are surprised that you fall ill, are tired, don’t

Education (19-09-12) When Wisdom comes, her first lesson is, "There is no such thing as knowledge; there are only aperçus of the Infinite Deity." Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-73) Education Usually all education, all culture, all refinement of the senses and the being is one of the best ways of curing instincts, desires, passions. To eliminate these things does not cure them; to cultivate, intellectualise, refine them, this is the surest means of curing. To give the greatest possible development for progress and growth, to acquire a certain sense of harmony and exactness of perception, this is a part of the culture of the being, of the education of the being…. Education

Sincerity (04-07-12) When I read a wearisome book through and with pleasure, yet perceived all the perfection of its wearisomeness, then I knew that my mind was conquered. Sri Aurobindo (Thoughts and Aphorisms-48) Sincerity “What is the fundamental virtue to be cultivated in order to prepare for the spiritual life?”   I have said this many times, but this is an opportunity to repeat it: it is sincerity. A sincerity which must become total and absolute, for sincerity alone is your protection on the spiritual path. If you are not sincere, at the very next step you are sure to fall and break your head. All kinds of forces, wills, influences, entities are there, on the look-out for